Life Beyond ALU; a conversation with Chisom Okwara.
We caught up with our ALUmni earlier this week, asking them what they’ve been up to, their experiences this past year, and just some tips and advice to the graduating class. This is what Chisom had to say:
What have you been up to? Any great news you’d like to share with the community?
I visited Niamey, Niger Republic this past holiday season and it was as exciting a trip as it was enlightening. I learned a lot about the city and country at large — a place so close to my home country, Nigeria; with a land area so vast and historical relics so profound, yet remains largely unknown, especially in a holistic, “non-single story” type of way. Special shout out to Salmane Tamo and Adamou Boubacar, both graduates of ALU Mauritius and Rwanda respectively, who supplied ample information when I reached out, and who helped me see their home country through their lenses before I got to experience it myself. Another major shoutout to an amazing former colleague at ALUSB who hosted me and made me feel at home all through my stay. While I’m still trying to process some of what the trip got me thinking of — things that apply to our continent as a whole — such as strides and gaps in education, development, politics, and female empowerment, I did write an essay on my earliest juxtaposition of Christmas in Niger and Nigeria which is published on Popula.
What are some things you wish you knew before leaving ALU that you know now?
Something Junior Macumu — ALU Rwanda‘17 — had put up as his graduation quote answers this for me. It said, “There is no script. Live your life. Soak it all in.” I wish I left ALU being more in tune with my personal dreams, those lifelong aspirations that burned brightly even before I came to ALU. I wish I left ALU knowing how vast the world, life, living, people… everything is, how there are many different possibilities for existence, that there is no one “right” way to live or grow. Now I know that it is okay to take the best things we’ve learned and become through ALU and merge that with all the beautiful things we’ve known about ourselves before ALU that maybe didn’t find the grounds to be nurtured in ALU, and that we can combine these “knowings” to decide what sort of life we want to live, what matters to us the most, and what “giving back” or “paying it forward” rings like on our path. After ALU, I learned to embrace uncertainty and change at a deeper level, and this, ALU had already prepared me for it in a very invaluable way. In all, I wish I left ALU knowing just how real and evident ALU’s lifelong impact is. Now I know that truly, I am part of a community — close friends and wider network inclusive — that sends support in the dreary times, and I do not take this for granted.
When you were graduating, how were you feeling? Any fears or concerns you had and what did you do about them?
My biggest fear after graduation was to end up dazed and depressed in Nigeria, this dear country of mine that dispenses love through pain…bouts and bouts of pain (alas, that happened…for a while). I was super anxious when I was graduating. It blurred most of my final months in Mauritius. But, I had a tipping point about a month to graduation when, thanks to either an email announcement or a newsletter footnote, I reached out to Kimberley Stewart, then a Career Placement Product Manager on campus. She facilitated a very productive conversation during which my graduation fears were laid on the table and possible solutions were brainstormed for the “solvable” bits. The session helped me concretize some of the fuzzy thoughts that plagued me and manifested as anxiety, and made me see that they weren’t all impossible turmoils and that with some action, most of which involved reaching out for help, support, and advice from people, I could make some progress in addressing the physical roots of my anxiety. I wrote the essay, “Speaking Frustration to Powerlessness” based on my take-aways from the session.
Zooming out, I’d say that both the session and its aftermath taught me to reach out, to ask for help, to let things out rather than keep them bottled up within. I found help from far-reaching sources when I reached out, and I remain grateful to all those in the wider ALU community who came through — helped me secure accommodation in Lagos, shared job opportunities, reminded me to “relax and breathe”, the list goes on.
Looking back at the mission you had by the time you were graduating, has that changed for you? If yes, how and why? If not, how have you grown in it and stayed on your path?
A lot has changed for me since graduating, by which I hint at things I’ve had to do away with, but when it comes to my passion for storytelling as a tool for change as well as my deep regard for our continent and all the potential that lies within it, those have probably grown over time. I am working on being intentional about life and living, and some of what I am trying to do, to this end, is re-invite my inner child to come to the fore and guide me to curiosity and freedom — to try and fail and try again, to seek after buried dreams, to be fearless. I’ve also joined new online communities, made new connections, and started cultivating new habits around my interests.
How have you stayed connected to the ALU Community? Any tips on that and how it has been useful to you?
It helps that my closest friends are within the ALU Community and they’re mostly a Whatsapp chat away. A tip — which might not be a tip anyways — could be to remember that we still have our google hangouts and ALUmni email addresses where we could respectfully reach out to our classmates, teachers, and perhaps school leadership. I try to stay up to date with activities from the ALU Christian Fellowship, which I declare lifelong loyalty to. Shout out to Jesus Alleluyunatha who sends me all the invites that make my day.
Generally, I’d say that one can stay in or form groups that they’d like to still follow closely after graduation. For the wider community, we’ve got an alumni committee that’s making sure we don’t grow too far apart so one could tap into that.
Chisom Okwara
Social Science Major, graduating class of June 2019
Entry Cohort of 2015.
